Cats

How to spell cats

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cats

What does cats mean?

1. nounMore than one small domesticated feline animal kept as a pet.

Cats in a sentence

• The shelter took in three abandoned cats last week.

• Our neighbours keep two cats that sleep on the porch all day.

Where does cats come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is simply the plural of 'cat', a word that reaches back to the Old English 'catt', used for the domestic feline. Closely related forms appear right across the Germanic languages, such as the Old Norse 'kottr' and the German 'Katze', and beyond them the Late Latin 'cattus' from around the sixth century. The ultimate source before that is uncertain and may have come into Europe along with the animal itself, possibly from an African language, which is why etymologists hedge on its deepest origin. The English plural is formed in the most ordinary way, by adding -s, so the spelling holds no surprises. Its long history explains why the word feels so plain and unremarkable today.

How the word is built

• cat (small domestic feline)
• -s (plural suffix)